Tesla begins production of solar roof tiles for customers

The company said that its solar roofs will cost between 10% and 15% less than an ordinary roof plus traditional solar panels

By Warren Miller,
contributing writer

Tesla’s bid to become the one-stop shop for the
environmentally conscious consumer took another step recently when the company announced that it has begun
mass-producing its long-promised “solar roof” panels for commercial
implementation. The company introduced the product in October of 2016,
proffering that the technology would cost between 10% and 15% less than having
traditional solar panels installed on an existing roof.

Tesla originally planned to have the solar roof tiles on the
market by last summer, but according to Tesla founder Elon Musk in an
article from the New York Post, “It just takes a little while to get
this behemoth rolling.” Several Tesla employees — including Musk himself — had
the tiles installed on their homes as part of a pilot program last year. In
November, Musk reaffirmed that the tiles were still in the testing phase but
would be available soon. Customers were asked to make a $1,000 deposit to
reserve the tiles as early as last May, with some already having their homes
being surveyed by Tesla employees for future installation.

The tiles are being manufactured in collaboration with long-time
Tesla partner Panasonic Corporation (they’ve worked together on batteries for
Tesla’s all-electric vehicles for years) in the company’s factory in Buffalo,
New York. According to Tesla, there are about 500 employees on-site in Buffalo, with a
stated goal of reaching more than 1 gigawatt of cell and module production
there soon, although they provided no specific timeline.

Tesla said that its solar
roofs will cost between 10% and 15% less than an ordinary roof plus traditional
solar panels. Image source: Tesla.

It seems that Tesla is attempting to rebuild an entire
energy capture, storage, and delivery system to provide the “fuel” for its
electric cars. If these solar tiles are as easy to install and as inexpensive
as promised, your roof and the one at your job, and the one at the fast food
place down the street, might just be the source that Tesla needs. With charging
stations sprinkled liberally around town and a few large energy storage wells
to capture the output from all of the roof tiles, electric cars might become just
about as easy to “fill up” as their gasoline-based ancestors.

While Tesla seems bullish about the potential of the solar
roof tiles, the company’s overriding focus is still on meeting the demand for
their new Model 3 sedan. Production of the Model 3 has been slower than
expected, with the company admitting that it would likely only produce about
half the number of the new model in the first quarter of 2018 than they had
originally anticipated. Still, Tesla expects commercial installation of the new
solar roof tiles to begin at some point this year. You might be faced with a
bit of a wait time, however, if demand is as strong as Tesla would like. Perhaps
having a Tesla electric car under your garage roof will put you higher up on the
waiting list.